English references

Climate change is causing measurable harm globally1,2. Political and legal efforts seek to link these damages with specific emissions, including in discussions of loss and damage (L&D)3,4; however, no quantitative definition of L&D exists5,6, nor is there a framework to link past and future emissions from specific sources to monetized, location-specific damages. Here we develop such a framework, which is integrated with recent efforts to estimate the social cost of carbon7. Using empirical estimates of the non-linear relationship between temperature and aggregate economic output, we show that future damages from past emissions—one component of L&D—are at least an order of magnitude larger than historical damages from the same emissions. For instance, one tonne of CO2 emitted in 1990 caused US$180 in discounted global damages by 2020 ($40–530) and will cause an additional $1,840 through 2100 ($500–5,700). Thus, settling debts for past damages will not settle debts for past emissions. In other illustrative esti

Legal action has brought important decisions, from the scrapping of fossil fuel plants to revised climate plans

A UN commission has found Israel’s war in Gaza ranks among history’s greatest crimes. The UK government must stop hiding behind legal fictions and recognise the reality

Legal analysis has accused Israel of committing genocide in four out of five categories as defined by 1948 convention

Legal residents of the United States sent to foreign prisons without due process. Students detained after voicing their opinions. Federal judges threatened with impeachment for ruling against the administration’s priorities. In the Opinion video above, Marci Shore, Timothy Snyder and Jason Stanley, all professors at Yale and experts in authoritarianism, explain why America is especially vulnerable to a democratic backsliding — and why they are leaving the United States to take up positions at the University of Toronto.

A new declaration aims to make the southernmost continent an autonomous legal entity, akin to a nation-state, with inherent rights to participate in decision making that affects it.

Jordanians now only have access to publicly distributed water a day and a half a week – prompting many to turn to illegal markets.

All local communities affected by mining projects should have the right to have a say on whether mining activities will start or continue in their backyard. This belief in community involvement in political, economic, and environmental decision-making is epitomised in a Right to Say No (RTSN), which is the inalienable and collective right of a community to say no (or yes) to extractive projects on the territories/lands they are living within. Currently, there is no real ‘Right’ to Say No outside of iterations of the indigenous right to free, prior and informed consent (FPIC) — it is a right we are asserting, not something we can yet claim. This toolbox will elaborate on the rights local communities already have and those rights that still need to be recognised and enforced, to establish a Right to Say No.

Several US states say news that Exxon scientists predicted global heating accurately strengthens their lawsuits against company

Residents of an Indonesian island threatened by rising sea levels have begun legal action against the cement producer Holcim. The claim for compensation, filed in Switzerland by three men and one woman, is understood to be the first major climate damages lawsuit against a cement company.

The UK government has proposed some worrying amendments to its already draconian policing bill. The amendments will directly target environmental activists and are a response to direct action protests from groups such as Extinction Rebellion and Insulate Britain, and protests against the HS2 high speed railway.

Exclusive: Greta Thunberg among young people filing legal suit for climate crisis to be declared a global level 3 emergency

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Around the world, activists are pushing to protect their rivers by giving them legal personhood. Is this just symbolism, or can it drive lasting environmental change?

In the early 2000s, the idea of giving legal rights to nature was on the fringes of environmental legal theory and public consciousness. Today, New Zealand’s Whanganui River is a person under domestic law, and India’s Ganges River was recently granted human rights. In Ecuador, the Constitution enshrines nature’s “right to integral respect”.

COMMENTARY AND CORE TEXT by the Independent Expert Panel for the Legal Definition of Ecocide

Legal experts from across the globe have drawn up a “historic” definition of ecocide, intended to be adopted by the international criminal court to prosecute the most egregious offences against the environment. The draft law, defines ecocide as “unlawful or wanton acts committed with knowledge that there is a substantial likelihood of severe and widespread or long-term damage to the environment being caused by those acts”.